


history is written with the touch of lips

by blazeofglory



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Anxiety, F/F, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Gender or Sex Swap, Genderbending, Pre-Draft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-09-07 02:19:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8779270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blazeofglory/pseuds/blazeofglory
Summary: You should never go out after two a.m., her mom always says. Just go to bed.Here's the thing, though: Kate has never been good at doing what she's told. It's 2:30 a.m. on a Wednesday and she is going to kiss Jackie Zimmermann.





	

**Author's Note:**

> You know that one How I Met Your Mother episode about how nothing good happens after 2am? I wrote this after rewatching that.

_Nothing good happens after two a.m._ Kate knows this, her mother’s told her a thousand times.

 _You should never go out after two_ , her mom always says. _Just go to bed_.

Here’s the thing, though: Kate has never been good at doing what she’s told.

It’s 2:30 a.m. on a Wednesday night and she should really, _really_ be in bed, but she’s not. She’s just gotten back to her hotel room, sneaking back in quietly so as not to wake her bunkmate because it’s past curfew. She’d been down the hall in Jackie’s room, which is thankfully a single, and they’d been watching shitty movies and drinking wine they’d bribed a college student to buy for them. The whole point of _leaving_ Jackie’s room and going back to her own was to go to bed.

But now Kate’s standing at the foot of her bed, and she can’t quite will herself to get in it and go to sleep.

It’s late, but she’s wide-awake. There’s alcohol and something that feels like adrenaline running through her veins, and she feels very brave and ready to do something very, very stupid. 

Kate thinks _fuck it_ and resolves never to let her mom know that she’d ignored her advice.

She puts her flip-flops back on and eases the door open quiet as can be, then slips out into the silent hallway. 

Six doors down is Jackie’s room. Kate doesn’t hesitate for a second before she knocks quietly. While she waits, she assesses how she probably looks—her long hair is pulled into a ponytail that’s long gone loose and messy, her makeup is probably smudged to hell like it always is this time of night, and her tanktop and shorts aren’t exactly her cutest outfit. But she looks okay, and her breath smells sweet with wine. Her heart is pounding in her chest and Jackie _still_ hasn’t answered the door, and with every passing second, Kate regrets coming back.

Jackie does answer the door, though, blinking sleepy eyes against the sudden light of the hallway. Her hair is down for once and she’s in the same soft, worn tshirt and pajama pants that she’s been wearing all night. She’s beautiful.

“Katie? Did you forget something?”

“Yeah,” Kate whispers, feeling uncharacteristically nervous. She steps forward and Jackie steps back, letting her back in the room; Kate closes the door behind her. She considers flicking the light on, but she doesn’t. In the dark, she reaches out and finds Jackie’s hand.

“What are you doing?” Jackie asks quietly, sounding much more awake, a familiar thread of anxiety in her voice. This is Kate’s chance to let go and step back and _go back to bed_ , but—but she doesn’t.

“Something stupid,” she answers softly. 

Then she’s stepping forward, closing that last inch between them, dropping Jackie’s hand so she can cup her face in both hands and—she tugs Jackie down and stands on her tiptoes and kisses her.

Jackie’s lips are soft against hers, but she doesn’t move. She doesn’t kiss Kate back.

After one long, lingering second, Kate pulls away, cheeks burning with embarrassment and stupid tears springing to her eyes. She shouldn’t have done that, she just—she probably just ruined the best thing she has. If she hadn’t done that, Jackie never would’ve known about her stupid crush and nothing would have to change, but _now_ , now Jackie knows and Jackie is going to hate her and never speak to her again, and—

Kate takes a hurried step back, back hitting the door behind her. She should leave, she should pretend this never happened, and maybe everything could still be okay, but… Jackie still hasn’t said a word. It’s so dark, Kate can see the outline of her, but she can’t see the look on Jackie’s face—is it confusion, is it disgust, is it anger?

“Jackie?” she prompts, voice small. “I’m sorry, I—I shouldn’t have done that.”

Jackie finally moves—she turns back towards the hotel bed and sits down heavily. Kate waits by the door, fighting the growing urge to flee.

“Katie,” Jackie’s voice finally comes, soft and so, so quiet. Kate has to step closer to hear her. “You and me, we… We can’t.”

“I know,” Kate answers immediately. “You’re straight, I know, I shouldn’t have done that. Can we just… pretend it never happened?” 

Kate’s eyes have started to adjust to the dark—she can see Jackie staring right at her, those blue eyes boring right into her.

“That’s not what I meant,” Jackie says after a moment.

Kate’s heart jumps and silly, ridiculous hope blossoms in her chest. She gathers her courage and walks over to the bed, sitting down next to Jackie. They’re close but not touching.

“Tell me what you meant,” she murmurs. “ _Please._ ” 

“We _can’t_ ,” Jackie says again, a little louder, a little more confident. Kate’s heart drops. “We wanna go pro, Katie. We’re not normal people, our reputations _matter_ , you know?” She doesn’t give Kate a chance to respond; she plows right on, growing in agitation. “We want to get drafted, that’s the goal here, that’s the whole reason we even _met_. No one can know about my anxiety, no one can know I’m on meds, and— _this_? There aren’t any lesbians in pro hockey. We wouldn’t get drafted.” 

Kate’s mind is racing, trying to wrap itself around everything Jackie’s said. It’s so much, it’s _too_ much to handle all at once.

“Is that the only thing stopping you?” Kate finally asks. 

Jackie sighs heavily, then leans over just a little and lets their shoulders bump, easy and familiar.

“Yeah,” Jackie answers, a quiet admission that makes all the difference.

“I want you,” Kate whispers, emboldened by Jackie’s answer and the darkness and the late hour, and—and probably the wine too. “I don’t know if I’m gay or whatever, but I want you. No one would have to know.”

“Someone would find out.”

“They wouldn’t,” Kate immediately refutes, growing in confidence. Jackie hasn’t said it, but she wants her too, Kate can feel it. “We’re best friends, it’s not like we’d act any different…” 

“We can’t date,” Jackie counters. “If that—if that’s what you want here, we can’t.”

“I just want you,” Kate says quietly.

“No one can know,” Jackie whispers. Her hands have been in her lap, but now… She moves one hand to Kate’s knee, a warm, grounding presence. Kate’s heart is a fluttery wreck.

“Okay,” she whispers.

Jackie echoes her, “Okay.” 

Then Jackie kisses her.

This is a _real_ kiss. Jackie’s lips are plush and insistent against Kate’s, and it feels so, _so_ good. Kate loses herself in the kiss—her eyes are closed and her hands are on Jackie’s face again, caressing her soft skin and keeping her close. Their lips move against each other’s and they breathe out their noses so they don’t have to part. It’s soft and sweet until Kate tilts her head just a little and her lips part; Jackie licks her way into her mouth, warm and wet. Their kisses turn filthy and _needy_ , both of them making soft noises.

Everything about Jackie is driving Kate fucking _crazy_. Jackie’s hands are in her hair, dislodging her ponytail even further, and Jackie’s teeth are biting at her lips, eliciting sounds that Kate didn’t even know she was capable of making. They kiss and they kiss and they _kiss_ , for what feels like hours, and when Kate finally pulls back, she recognizes just how warm she feels. The feeling is both familiar and foreign—the wetness between her legs isn’t new, and not even new around Jackie, but _this_ situation has never happened before. It’s always just been her and her own hand, but _now_ , there’s the prospect of more. The thought makes her shift in excitement, thighs squeezing together in anticipation.

“This doesn’t feel real,” Kate murmurs, startling a quiet laugh out of Jackie. They’re still so close, hands still on each other’s faces, breathing in the same air. “I might be dreaming.”

“I’ve had this dream too,” Jackie responds softly, and Kate’s heart fucking _soars_. She doesn’t know what this is between them; not really. She just knows that it’s fragile and new, and she _wants_. She doesn’t know exactly _what_ it means, but it means _something_ that Jackie’s dreamt about this too.

Kate hopes this mean Jackie wants this to happen more than once. If she’s being honest with herself, she knows she’s sort of in love with her best friend, and—and maybe, just _maybe_ , Jackie is sort of in love with her too. The idea doesn’t sound as far-fetched as it had an hour ago.

She kisses Jackie again. Impulsively, she kicks off her flip-flops and starts inching back on the bed, pulling Jackie with her. Kate ends up flat on her back with Jackie on top of her, straddling her hips. Jackie breaks the kiss after a moment, sounding hesitant when she whispers, “Katie, I’ve never done this before. I don’t… I don’t know how.”

Kate grins up at Jackie and tucks an errant strand of dark hair behind her ear. “I don’t either,” she admits. “I guess we’ll just have to wing it.”

“Yeah, okay.” Jackie smiles back at her, before her eyes slip shut and she ducks back down to kiss her once more. They don’t stop kissing for a very long time.

 

Hours later, Kate glances at the clock—it’s past four now. Long, _long_ past two.

Jackie is curled into her side, warm and asleep, and Kate presses a kiss to the top of her dark hair. It’s nice to know her mother was wrong about one thing.

**Author's Note:**

> I know this ends kind of abruptly. The reason for that is that there are another ~300 words of this that I haven't posted. Because those ~300 words are unfinished porn. Once finals are over, I might get around to finishing it and I'll add it to the bottom of this or as a second chapter. Let me know if y'all would wanna read that! :)


End file.
